NIGHT IN THE PINES
It were mid-day one had said, with a brighter sun o’erhead,When a little hush came stealing through the branches swaying low;Such a space of silence tender as the pause that serves to renderSome sweet music even sweeter in its pulsing after-flow.The gold-sifted light that rested on the bracken plumes green-crested,Shimmered faintly into silver on the diamond-dusted firs;Upward where the mountain lifted one brown shoulder seamed and rifted,Grew a shadow ’gainst the sky line, softly as the shade that stirsLightly o’er a sleeper dreaming;—then the star lamps trimmed and gleaming,From the dim, blue dome near-bending flashed their jewelled radiance down:Where the timid aspens quiver gusty wind-puffs start and shiver,Like the ghosts of wandering night elves rustling through the needles brown.Night that elsewhere silently lays her spell on land and sea,Soothing restless souls to quiet in the shadow of her wings,Here with hushing tone and slow through the rocking pines croons lowEarth-old lullabies as tender as a watching mother sings.Rest ye, weary hearts and lone; lean ye down against mine own;Put aside the fret of living and be glad in dreamless sleep;Lose awhile the vain regretting in the balm of sweet forgetting—Or remember but the promise that the coming mornings keep.